Werner Werman
Werner Werman is a boss in Cuphead. He is fought in the level Murine Corps, which is located in Inkwell Isle Three. Description Appearance Werner is a long-snouted brown rat who operates a tank in the form of a dented tin soup can perched on a wooden cart. He wears white gloves, blue shoes, and light brown pants (with a tan stripe running down each side of the pants) held up by a single suspender strap. His most notable feature is his metal pickelhaube helmet strapped to his head. He also smokes a cigar. The cat has purple fur, yellow eyes, salmon paw pads and inner ears. Its muzzle and paws are a light violet color. Personality Werner Werman acts like a stereotypical German soldier, talking in a German accent and making a salute whenever he charges forward to attack with his tank. He appears to be interested in the late 1700- early 1900 military as he is wearing a Prussian soldier hat and owns a Colonial British soldier figurine. Werner is also an incredibly skilled technician, having the talent to create both a realistic mechanical cat and a tank with multiple uses out of wood and a soup can. He doesn't seem to mind boasting about his own technology, as evident by his 2nd phase's death screen. Intro As the battle commences, Werner has his cigar lit by a mechanical arm from the can's interior before going inside to pilot the tank. Phase 1 In this phase, Werner has two main attacks that he performs on either side of the arena: *A cannon attached to a spring comes out of the can, shooting out five cherry bombs that will damage the player(s) if they come in contact with them or the explosion they create. If the bombs hit the floor, they will send shock waves of fire that travel along the ground in both horizontal directions upon exploding. *A catapult appears and hurls a spread of projectiles at the player(s). These projectiles can be bottle caps, gems, nuts, bolts, coins and pieces of gum (the gum can be parried). On Simple difficulty, there will be 3 pieces of gum per launch and only 2 on Regular. After performing one of these two attacks, he will send out two springboards that land on random spots. He will then charge at the player(s) to the other side of the arena. The player(s) must parry these springboards to gain extra height to jump over Werner, due to how big his tank is. The player(s) can also dash through his attack if they have the Smoke Bomb charm equipped. Even if the player(s) manage(s) to dodge his attacks and his charge, it is still possible to unknowingly bump into his tank and accidentally get damaged in the process. After taking enough damage, Werner attempts to use what appears to be a bottle rocket in an effort to damage the player(s), but it backfires; the mechanical arm is unable to handle the weight of the rocket, causing it to drop into the tank and explode. Upon exploding, the exterior of the can is destroyed with Werner badly injured, but he continues to operate the tank. This commences the second phase of the fight. Phase 2 In this phase, Werner attacks the players by shooting fire streams on both sides from two flamethrowers mounted below his seat. This attack can be avoided by immediately moving to the area from which Werman moved, as Werner will cycle between moving up and down and firing the flamethrowers. While that happens, two columns of bottle caps shaped like saw blades appear on both sides of the arena. The pattern of these caps extending and trying to catch the player depends on the player's current location. On Regular, an entire side might activate at once. After taking enough hits, Werner will start to panic and frantically shift his tank's control levers back and forth as the tank appears to have stopped working. All of a sudden, the cat that had been occasionally peering behind the holes in the wall throughout the fight will break in and eat him, commencing the final phase. In Simple mode, the cat won't eat Werner after this phase, instead ending the battle with his tank sputtering. Final Phase In this phase, which only appears on Regular and Expert, the players battle the cat as it attacks by opening its mouth, revealing a grate from which two spectral rats, clad in 1930s style prison scrubs emerge (four in Expert mode). These ghosts will conjure a pink crystal-like ball and throw it at the player, or they will sometimes fire a normal blue ball that cannot be parried unless Whetstone is used. This ball will release two fire waves travelling along the ground upon exploding, but it's possible to prevent this from happening by parrying the ball. The cat can also attack by smashing the floor with its paw. As it retracts its paw, wooden boards begin to fall down from above. They will damage the player if they hit. The boards fall directly where the player currently is, so it's best to keep moving to avoid getting hit. After dealing enough damage, the cat's face falls off and reveals Werner is still alive and well inside its head and was controlling the cat, which is actually a machine which Werner might have built. Gallery Rat german.png|''Phase 1 sprite'' Cat meow.png|''Final phase sprite'' (The Cat) Trivia *In the 2015 trailer, there is a short scene of Cuphead collecting a soul contract from Werner, it went unused in the final game, it's possible it might have been an early victory screen. **In the same trailer, Werner's dash attack had no springs to help dodge it. *Werner appears to be Prussian/German with his German-accented death lines, the helmet (pickelhaube) he's wearing resembling those worn in World War I by German and Prussian soldiers and his forename and surname (Werner and Werman, with the latter being an alternate to Wehrmann) both originating from Germany. ** Werman, when pronounced with a German accent, can sound like vermin, a common term used when referring to animals classified as pests. ** Taking into consideration that Cuphead is set in the 1930s, Werner Werman may be a World War I veteran. ** The tank he uses is most likely a reference to the German Panzertruppen, which was a popular war machine in WWI, or the Panzer VIII Maus, a super-heavy tank constructed by Germany in WWII. ** The soup can that was used in the tank's creation is possibly a reference to how Germans normally ate soup when other food was scarce. ** When dying on the first phase, Werner mentions "eins, zwei, drei", which is German for "one, two, three". *Due to the nature of the battle and inclusion of the cat, Werner's boss fight might be a reference to the famous Tom and Jerry cartoons. His mecha cat itself greatly resembles Thomas (Tom) Cat, particularly his early incarnations. **Werner's status as a German rodent refers to how in WWI, British and American soldiers would often give German soldiers the nickname 'Jerries'. **Werner's brief scream, when he is seemingly eaten by his mechanical cat, sounds similar to the iconic screams of Tom when he is in pain or in a panic. *The name of the stage, "Murine Corps" is a pun on Murinae, the family of rodents such as mice and rats, and Marine Corps, though he is not implied to work around the sea. *Werner's appearance resembles that of Mortimer Mouse, from the Mickey cartoons. *The red, blue, and white flag in the background of Werner's home resembles a British Flag. This could either hint that he was a traitor in war times or serve as a trophy from combat. *The can tank that Werner drives are the same colors of cans of Campbell's Soup. *The grate inside the cat could be a projector, considering the cat turns out to be a machine. *Phase 3 of the boss battle might be a reference to the Cheshire Cat boss fight from the Sega Genesis game The Adventures of Batman & Robin. *The ghosts that appear during the final phase appear to have been killed by Werner Werman, considering that the cat turns out to be a machine under his control. *The cat, throughout the course of the 3rd phase can sometimes be heard uttering Territorial Meowing noises. ru:Вернер Верман Category:Characters Category:Bosses Category:Male Category:Inkwell Isle 3